After ending our tour, we went back to Paradise hotel, the hotel in Xi Men Ting where we stayed the previous night. My Ah Gu is coming to meet us, his girlfriend is Taiwanese living in Dan Shui, and he fly to Taiwan the previous night. They came to the hotel to find us, and then bring us around Xi Men Ting to walk walk see see : )

This is a big-thing in Taiwan. ???. And this stall is the most famous of them all. One bowl of noodles is around SGD$2, not very expensive you say, but they do it in quantity. Have to go through the long Q just to buy the noodles, what’s more you ask? People literally hold the bowl and eat by the road side. No kidding.

We walk around eating ??, and shop around, didn’t buy much though. The shopping comes much later at night. We also eat Duck Tongue. My first try! Hahah. Feels funny, but then it doesn’t really taste very weird la. After which, night falls and we have to find some place for dinner. The place we are at was Ximen Station, so we decided to go to the next station for our dinner. At first wanted to take cab since its easier, but then we never went on the Taiwan MRT yet, so here we go.

The train station was super crowded, but then it wasn’t really that hard to navigate around. Ximen station is some sort like Singapore City Hall station, the interchange station. So naturally its much more crowded and difficult to move around. But being true-blue Singaporeans, what’s this to us? Hahaha. No problem at all. From our Ximen station, we had to go down one level to take the next line to go to our destination. In Singapore we say ”Keep to your left” correct? But no one does it. One thing i really like about Taiwan MRT is that, everyone really follow the MRT rules, their one is slightly different, they “Keep to their Right”, and they really do. See? Once got people don’t keep to the right, the whole line will jam, and people behind will stare at you. LOL!

We reach the next station and took a 5min walk to this restaurant. Ah gu’s girlfriend suggested this place because she say this is one of the place which serves really local Taiwan porridge.

Hmm.. we had about 7 dishes for this meal, all very cheap dishes like vegies, egg, normal fish. You guess how much the meal cost? SGD$110!! For porridge? What the hell right? But yea, thats how much it cost. It must be the most expensive porridge i ever eaten. *Faint*

We went back to Ximen, but this time we took cab, much faster, and its even cheaper than taking train. Seriously. Shopping time, not much time left man. My rewards were a bag, nike shoe, tie, t-shirts and some others which i forgot. Hahaha! Then we went back to the hotel and chat. But after a while Ah gu is hungry. So together with me and donald, three of us went out and see what we can find. The time was around 11pm already, and this is when the streets become alive. Earlier when we were in the streets of Ximending, the shops are all open, and the street is full of people. Now we go back, the shops are mostly closed, and the street has lots of hawker stalls selling ??.

Something interesting happen while we were buying the salty-chicken. When we made our order, somebody suddenly shouted “police police!!” The stalls all went for cover, but after a while nothing happen, so they all came out again. Then while the hawker is cooking the chicken, the police really came, and all of them scramble for cover. But the funny thing is, the police car drove past them, they hide by the road side, the police can see them, but no action done. Ha! After the police is gone, they came out, and finally we got our chicken.

We went back, finish up the food, they left and we went to sleep. We slept at around 1230am, the flight next day is at 7am, the journey from Taipei to airport is 1 hours, we have to get up at 4am because 2 hours earlier before check-in time. So on the way to the airport we were like falling asleep on the bus.

Thats the end of the Taiwan trip, it was really fun, we got to see many things, and also tasted many of the delicious food in Taiwan. Mayb the next time, same like Shanghai, just book a plane ticket fly there, book hotel free-and-easy. Hahaha! But i do know the next time i go will be with the army next year june-july period, for training of course. It took me very long, almost more than one month to make all the post, but then i was really very busy. Too many photos to upload. A lot of things that happen this few weeks are not updated yet, they will come very fast, all this includes Secret Recipe, Ivins, Daily Scoop, Hooked! Ema Dine, Terra Cafe and Haato 

For the full post, please go to ladyirontravel

” The world is a book, and those who never travel only read a page “

Lunch is @ Dian Shui Lou ???, i believe the restaurant is rather popular, and similar in concept to Singapore Din Tai Feng. Various celebrities have visited the shop before, most notably Liu Yifei and Huang Xiaoming from ”The return of Condor heros.” The highlight for the place is its famous Xiaolongbao. So lets look at the various variety of xiaolongbao the shop offers.

Apparently, i am not very sure of the different type of xiaolongbao. Hahaha! Too many, and they didn’t tell us which is which. So we just keep on pop-ing xiaolongbao into our greedy mouth. I found the fried rice not bad, but the others don’t really like it because they think that the rice is too soft (Taiwan rice is much softer than Thai rice). I believe the main reason is because Singaporeans are much used to the hard thai rice, so eating the soft Taiwan fried rice they find it weird. This is the “official” end of our Taiwan guided tour. The tour guide collect his tips, and from now on its on our own. Free-and-easy. Stay tune

For the full post, please go to ladyirontravel

” The world is my home, i live wherever i go “

The morning is always good, especially so if you wake up in 5 Star Grand Hyatt hotel. Breakfast is no exception, only the best is served. I think the breakfast buffet is SGD$35-40 if i didn’t remember wrongly. Nice ambience, nice food, to the extent i don’t want to leave : )

They have this counter where a chef makes waffles and pancakes for you on the spot. The toppings are good stuff, chocolate, butter, honey (just to name a few). What’s even more impressive is that there is a honey comb, every drop of honey comes directly from it. The honey is really pure.

Finishing breakfast, we went to Taipei Musemum to see arts, arts and more arts. After which, we go to a special restaurant for lunch, some sort like Singapore Din Tai Feng. Then the tour is officially ended, and the rest of the time will be free-and-easy! Cheers. Watch this space for the next post

For the full post, please go to ladyirontravel

” Open your eyes, see the world “

We arrived at Grand Hyatt around 4pm? It simply blew me away. Five star hotels are indeed in a different league. Easily put, Grand Hyatt is the BEST hotel in our 8 days Taiwan trip, the services, the rooms, the prestige. It won hands-down.

After settling down and visiting the hotel, we went out for a walk. From Grand Hyatt, we cross a overhead bridge to Taipei 101 (its just beside Grand Hyatt). And the good thing is, all the shopping centres there are linked together with bridges and shelters. Beside Grand Hyatt is Taipei 101, and beside is New York New York, with a Cinema complex just behind it, and beside the Cinema is ???? shopping mall. Complicated right? Hahaha.

Taipei 101 is some sort of our Paragon, mayb a bit more up than Paragon, but the idea is there, all the branded goods can be found here. And its divided into two parts, the shopping area, and the office area. Not really our league, so we left and walk over to New York New York, another shopping centre beside Taipei 101.

New York New York! Cool name? Inside nothing much to shop actually, but we walked around, quite a few of restaurants in there, but none suits our eyes. We end up buying donuts (see below)

Arhh.. The donut craze. Mister Donut ought to be the most popular donut store in Taiwan with many branches around the whole island. Each donut is about 1.5SGD, and too many to choose from.

went with Donald to wander around, we walk to the cinema no particular show to watch, so we went to ????. The shopping mall is super complicated, it has 4 blocks, catering to diff needs of the consumer, one block the high end type etc. The shopping mall is freaking huge, but we cant find anything we like. Damn the rain again, if not for the rain, we can go further, but because of it, our movement is restricted to shelter areas. While on the way back to Grand Hyatt empty-handed, we saw this shop call NET, which has much branches in Taiwan, so we went in and took a look. Donald even claimed that so expensive shop sure cannot find anything we can afford one. But surprise surprise, there is a sale going on, and we ended up with our pocket considerately lighter.

The next post is the last day of our Taiwan trip, we will go to the Taiwan Musemum, and also free-time shopping in Xi Men Ting.

For the full post, please go to ladyirontravel

” Donuts - Do not eat it “

Last night we slept in a lousy hotel called Paradise hotel (not paradise at all), but the location is good, its located in West street, or more famously known as ???. We didn’t visit the area though, partly because it was too late and partly because i was engrossed in watching Taiwan TV. No worries, tonight we will go to Grand Hyatt which is at the East side of Taipei, but tomorrow night we will be coming back to this west side of Taipei, and have a chance to visit ???. Waking up, we went to visit the Taiwan President house. Not really included in the package, but the tour guide “throw” it in as a bonus visit. We took a 15min walk around to view the place, nothing much to see though.

Finally to the interesting aspect of this post, we took a 45min bus ride to ??????. It was a longer ride because ?? is located on the outer of Taipei. ?????? was a famous place for its beautiful scenaries, and also the lover bridge. But as God permits it, rain spoilts everything. What was suppose to be a beautiful harbor did not turn out to be as nice due to the poor weather. I like the rain when its on my side, and hate it when its against me. How many times when you wish it will rain, but it did not, and when you do not want it to rain, it came pouring down?

Ahh.. After going to ??????, we go to ???? which is a street 5mins away from the fisherman wharf. If you notice, ???? appears in one of the scenes in ???? starring Angela and Wu Zun. Nice place, lots of food and interesting things to see.

There is this coffee cafe, ecoffee. Like what the signboard wrote, “who says 35TWD (1.5SGD) cant get you a good coffee?” Ecoffee uses choice raw beans and makes coffee at the time of order so to satisfy most customers’ taste buds with most attractive prices. In a short time of several years, Ecoffee has become one of the largest coffee brand chain stores with over 230 coffee shops scattering in Taiwan and becong one part of people’s life.

If you know, Taiwan people don’t drink as much coffee as Singaporeans do, they drink tea, lots of tea. So in Taiwan, a starbucks coffee is consider the norm. Until ecoffee comes along and threatens as the “anti-starbucks” It offers good coffee at a much cheaper price to starbucks, and its now open in Singapore too. The only branch is located in Geylang lorong 13 (of all places?) O well.

We took the one hour ride back to the heart of Taipei, and we are going back to our hotel for the night Grand Hyatt. The next post will be on Grand Hyatt, and our night wandering of Taipei : )

Catch the full post at ladyirontravel

” Hand in hand, heart to heart, we walk the lovers bridge “

After the last post where we leave Yangmingshan hotspring, we are now going into Taipei, Shilin night market. By the time we reached the place, it was about 730pm, and we only got until 930pm to eat and shop. Thats the bad thing about following tours ) :

Shilin ???? is divided into two areas, one where all the foodie gathers, some sort of our Singapore Hawker centre where there are a lot of stalls selling different type of food. And the other area across the street is the ?? night market area, where there are a lot of shops and stalls selling all sort of stuff. Clothes, shoes, u name it they have it.

Taiwan ?? are actually similar in nature, with the food they sell being mostly identical, and the clothes, stuff they sell also fairly similar. From what i observe, ladyironchef can classify the top 3 most popular into the following (according to personal opinion)

Top 3 Most Popular ??

1. ??

2. ????? 

3. ???

Chicken cutlets ?? can be seen anywhere, and is one of the most popular  ?? in Taiwan, in Singapore, made famous by the ??????. But then actually its not just ?????? that are nice, there are a lot stores all selling very nice one

?????  as the name implies, big sausage with a small sausage inside. As i never had it before, on first thought i really believe it was a big sausage with small sausage, but boy was i wrong. The “big sausage” is actually made of glutinous rice, with a ???? inside it. This post does not have a close up picture of it, watch out for the coming post for the picture.

??? i believe is also known for one of the most famous ?? in Taiwan. The ??? which they had is different from what we had in Singapore & Malaysia, they had a extra sweet sauce on the ???, which many of Singaporeans may find it weird, but personally i found it to be quite nice.

Top 3 Most Common ??

1. ??

2. ???

3. ??

This three type i think are some of the most common ?? in Taiwan, many diff stalls selling the same item. Anyway, lets get on to the nice food we ate at Shilin.

After eating, we hurried to the night market across the street and start shopping. Too many things to buy, and too many people around. Hahaha! No time to take photos, so this is the only photo showing the street. Not too bad, my rewards are a black vest, t-shirt, and cap. More to come, more to come. Tomorrow, the next post we shall go to ?????? Fishermans Wharf & old street. After which we will go to the star hotel of the trip, Grand Hyatt!! And also some night shopping. See ya!

To see the full post, please go to ladyirontravel

” I love travelling. Travel lets me see, touch, feel the different cultures of other countries “

Following the scenaries at Yeliu, it is about 5pm when we start to literally head up to Yangmingshan ???, its a high mountain after all. By now everyone is feeling sweaty from the walk at Yeliu, a hot spring bath is just needly on time.

The hotspring we are going to is a 5star hot spring hotel. Hear hear! The hot spring is divided into two different parts, one outdoor which also means swimming costume one, and another indoor which also means nake hot spring. Hahaha! Anyway all of us went to the outdoor one, so i don’t know how the indoor one is like. At this point of time onwards, no pictures are shown on the hotspring, why? because they don’t allow camera. Duh! Besides how do u bring camera in when you are having a hotspring bath? Gee!

Entering into the hotel, oh my god! Its so posh and nice. How i wish we can stay there for the night, but no its not on the iterniery. The guide bring us to the changing room, there we change and go to the outdoor hotspring. The hotspring got many different type of water;

• Fruit (warm)
• Coffee (warm)
• Rose (warm)
• Green Tea (cold)
• Cold Spring
• Spring Bamboo Charcoal (cold)
• And also 4 normal water spring (temperature ranging)

Shoik right? Thats not all, i particularly like one place where you can lie down and got strong water bursting down from the top and massage you. I can lie there all day and sleep. Ha! There is also a lover’s pool for couples. One of the normal spring is super hot, even with the leg in only you cannot take it. But i did go down with the whole body to experience the hotspring!

Hotspring is really very good, and relaxes the body. We should go for hotspring often, but there isn’t any in Singapore. Taiwan and Japan! Hahahaha! When the time’s up, all of us don’t want to get up and leave the place, but then dinner’s calling, and its at Shilin night market!!!

By the time all of us is up and done, its around 7pm already, all feeling hungry, and it’s gonna take another 1 hour before we can reach Taipei city, and go to Shilin. Worse thing is, after we exit the changing room and come out, we pass by the hotel restaurant, and my godness, their buffet dinner looks heavenly. Ther have the outdoor BBQ, and also indoor there is plenty of food selection. Just looking at the desserts and cakes makes me feel so yummy. And oh ya, the buffet cost S$40 per person, but even if we wan to pay for the buffet, we can’t.

Taa-daa! Thats the end of the hotspring at Yangmingshan. We are going to take a 1 hour ride to Taipei, where we are going to visit the fame Shilin night market.

And ya, YOU! Yes you! Why are you always looking at my post, but not posting any comments?!? Leave some comment! You hear me? Leave comments, good or bad i don’t care : )

For the full post please go to ladyirontravel

” Cakes delightfully sinful “

From our last stop at the ling zhi shop, we’re on the way back to Taipei, but before that, we go to a place called Ye liu which is by the sea with a magnificent view of the rock formation formed over many many years. The entrance fee was 209 TWD, which comes to about S$10, i must say the ticket price is a steal when the view is priceless.

Took a lot of wonderful pictures, but not able to display all due to space constraint. Pictures really doesn’t do the view justice, its diff to imagine how beautiful the place is just by looking at the pictures. I urge all who are going to Taiwan to go to Ye liu and take a look at the magnificent scenaries there.

The next post. we will be going up the famous Yang Ming Shan ???, for our hot spring bath. Ta-ta

To see the full post, please go to ladyirontravel

” The magnificent scenaries are priceless, for everything else there is Mastercard “